It's been a while since we caught up with Stallman. But a couple months ago we took a look around at what's happening with law, politics and technology and realized that he maybe perhaps his extremism and paranoia were warranted all along. So when we were contacted by an Iranian Linux publication and asked if we would like to publish an English translation of a recent interview they had done with Stallman, I thought that it was a particularly rich opportunity.

Affects... yeah sure. Bears on the rightness or wrongness (or correctness/incorrectness)- no, sorry. Someone's behavior and disposition may give clues as to the reliability of a source, but tells us nothing about the expressed viewpoint - which must be evaluated on it's own merits.

Imagine that The Mad Hatter posited that the moon was made from rock while a career scientist suggested it was made out of green cheese. Evaluating these claims using personality and disposition, we would likely listen to the scientist. However, this believability and credibility has no bearing on the facts of the matter. The scientist, however sober, reasonable and sane, would be wrong on this point.

This was my point.

If you are speaking about ethics, it is entirely about somebodies outlook.

So you're a pure subjectivist, then? I'm not, so we'll never agree. Too many people have tried arguing this one - we're not going to solve it.

Jaron Lanier used to live with him and was utterly dismayed when Stallman announced he was going to make a "free" unix clone.

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If we're going to dismiss the opinions of clearly egotistical individuals than I think we'd better leave Mr. Lanier's opinions to the side. His tone of address in his writings is so condescending as to be insulting.

It was utter nonsense. A logical breakdown wasn't necessary because it made no sense whatsoever.

So you're a pure subjectivist, then? I'm not, so we'll never agree. Too many people have tried arguing this one - we're not going to solve it.

No, but outside and inside of the computer sphere the guy is stark raving f--king bonkers. He uses a cron job to surf the net, thinks that minified JavaScript is removing people's freedoms. He pretty much believes that I am enslaved because I can't read and modify the code on the system that I prefer to use.... obviously I am going to know what to do with 100 millions of lines of code that contribute to the average modern operating system.

I can't take any of his ethical arguments seriously. Because I cannot take him seriously.

The author of the software should be free to choose whatever license they wish ... and the user is should be given the choice if they want to use the software with the licenses restriction (if there is any at all).

There is no ethical issue in my mind at all ... it is a deal ... you use something while accepting the terms of the person that created it.

If we're going to dismiss the opinions of clearly egotistical individuals than I think we'd better leave Mr. Lanier's opinions to the side. His tone of address in his writings is so condescending as to be insulting.

How is Jaron Lanier condescending exactly? I've actually read some of his stuff and I am not a Gadget was a quite interesting read. There wasn't anything patronising not much of it was abrasive, "being dismayed" which were his exact words is hardly egotistical.